PSE closing down stretch of Bucklin Hill for line installation

During rush hour, the stretch of Bucklin Hill Road between the Social Security Administration building and the Albertson’s shopping plaza often suffers the stand-still ailment. This week, it will be impassable during the day as well.

Puget Sound Energy is installing a buried power line crossing and closing down Bucklin Hill between Mickelberry Road and Tracyton Boulevard/Myhre Road.

Construction is scheduled for Monday through Friday, March 27-31, with a detour in place between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Only emergency vehicles will be allowed to pass through the work area.

PSE is installing the cables for the Highland Business Park now under construction along Myhre Road between Bucklin Hill and Ridgetop Boulevard.

Powering the new mixed retail and office buildings “necessitates cutting across the road” said Dan McDaniel, PSE manager of government and community relations. The weeklong road closure also will allow PSE to install a loop feed, an extra power line crossing that would keep Silverdale powered when the county tears down a culvert on Myhre Road this summer.

PSE has cable in the Clear Creek crossing at Myhre Road, between Mickelberry and Silverdale Way, near Silverdale Fitness.

Kitsap County’s Public Works department plans on replacing the culvert with a bridge to allow creek water to flow more freely beneath the road. The nearly $1.6 million improvement on Myhre Road is part of the Clear Creek Flood Plain Restoration project. Work is expected to start at the end of May.

Installing the loop at Bucklin Hill gives PSE a back-up power line when the culvert-to-bridge construction disrupts the power lines there. With the loop, “power won’t be lost in the Silverdale business district,” McDaniel said.

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